RAM LAL Vs. MOHAN LAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS revision raises an important question of law as to whether a tenant can be permitted to repudiate the title of his landlord during the subsistence of the tenancy It appears that in a suit for ejectment brought by the plaintiff respondent against the defendant petitioner, the latter while admitting that he was a tenant of the former denied his title and set it up in the administrator of Evacuee Property. The trial court inter alia raised an issue whether the property in dispute was an evacuee property and if so what was its effect on the suit. Later on the application of the plaintiff the court by its order dated 18 -11 -1969 struck off this issue considering it as irrelevant. It held that considering the scope of section 116 of the Evidence Act the defendant was precluded from setting up this plea and therefore the determination of this question whether or not the property in dispute was an evacuee property, could not be determined by this court in these proceedings. Aggrieved by this order the defendant has come up in revision before this court.

(2.) I have heard the learned counsel for the parties.

(3.) I have been led through the pleadings of the parties and also the relevant law on the subject. It is true that the defendant in his written statement has admitted that he got shop in question on rent from the plaintiff by virtue of the rent note in the year 2008 Bikrimi at an annual rate of rent of Rs. 120.00 Thereafter the defendant executed another rent note dated 14th of Oct. 1968 in which the rate of rent stipulated was @ Rs. 192.00 per annum. Although the original rate of rent payable was Rs 120.00 yet the defendant has been paying the stipulated renewed rate to the plaintiff and therefore there has been holding over on the part of the lessee. The defendant also pleaded in his written statement that it was wrong that the plaintiff required the property for his personal use. The plaintiff had a number of other properties and therefore he could not eject the defendant on this ground. In view of these allegations and admissions made in the written statement where the defendant has admitted the tenancy, he can hardly be allowed to put up an inconsistent case and repudiate the title of this landlord by setting it up in another person. Section 116 of the Evidence Act operates a clear bar to the taking up of such defence. The section expressly provides that no tenant of immovable property shall during the continuance of tenancy be permitted to deny that the landlord of such tenant had at the beginning of the tenancy a title to such immovable property. This bar continues to operate in the case of a tenant so long as he holds the property as tenant and does not surrender its possession to the landlord. An attempt has been made on behalf of the petitioner to interpret the expression at the beginning of the tenancy to mean that the bar operates only to the time when the tenant is let in possession for the first time by the landlord. It is open to the tenant to repudiate the title of his landlord subsequently even during the continuance of tenancy. In my opinion it will be doing violence to the language of the section if this interpretation which is sought to be placed on the wording of the section by the learned counsel for the petitioner is accepted. Rather it will have the effect of making the provisions of section 116 which contain the salient principle of estoppel as meaningless. The expression during the continuance of tenancy is lose sight of by the learned counsel for the petitioner while interpreting the section. The Section cannot be compressed so as to give this narrow interpretation. In my opinion no tenant who had been let into possession by the landlord and who holds the property as tenant can be permitted during the continuance of tenancy to repudiate the title of his landlord so long as he does not surrender the possession to him. I am, therefore, of the view that the trial courts order while deleting issue No. 3 as redundant and irrelevant does not suffer from any legal infirmity. The order has been correctly passed by the learned trial Judge.